Ray Atkeson (February 13, 1907 – May 25, 1990) was a U.S.

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

best known for his landscape images, particularly of the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

. His best known photographs are

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

prints, many still popular in galleries, stores, books, traveling

art exhibition An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhib ...

s, and

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s. His awards include: * Distinguished Citizen of OregonGraphic Arts Center Publishing Company
/ref> * Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from

Linfield College Linfield University is a private university with campuses in McMinnville, and Portland, Oregon. Linfield Wildcats athletics participates in the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference. Linfield reported a combined 1,755 students after the fall ...

* Distinguished Service Award * Oregon Governor's Art Award * Oregon state Photographer Laureate (1987–1990)Ray Atkeson Photography
* inducted into the Photographic Hall of Fame

History

Ray Atkeson was a commercial photographer in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

for seventeen years 1929-1946 after arriving in Oregon in 1927. From 1946 to 1973 he was a free lancer photographer and published several photo compilations. The photobooks are mostly of Oregon and Washington, but later work included California. His photographs captured 1930s fishing vessels recently adapted to use engines to women building warships for World War II. Alan Engen called Atkeson "the finest ski photographer ever." Atkeson lugged around heavy 4x5 camera equipment and photographed a rich variety of winter mountain scenery and activity. Many of his alpine photos were taken before the

chairlift An elevated passenger ropeway, or chairlift, is a type of aerial lift, which consists of a continuously circulating steel wire rope loop strung between two end terminals and usually over intermediate towers, carrying a series of chairs. They ...

was invented and required ski stamina. Among his subjects were

Errol Flynn Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian-American actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia ...

Yosemite Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...

, many of the

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

Cascade mountains. In his later years his granddaughter

Karen Schmeer Karen Schmeer (February 20, 1970 – January 29, 2010) was a film editor who frequently collaborated with filmmaker Errol Morris. Early life and education Schmeer was born in Portland, Oregon. She was the daughter of Michael Schmeer and Elean ...

assisted him with his work, including driving him to photo-shoot locations after his eyesight began to fail. Atkeson maintained two homes: one on the

Oregon Coast The Oregon Coast is a coastal region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to its west and the Oregon Coast Range to the east, and stretches approximately from the California state border in the south to the Columbia ...

, the other in Portland. In 1988, Atkeson was one of the chief petitioners for the successful Measure 7 which added to the Oregon Scenic Waterway System originally formed by an initiative passed in 1970.

Books

* * * * * * * * * *

Legacy

The Ray Atkeson Photography Collection was donated to the University of Oregon in 2018. It contains over 250,000 negatives which are available to researchers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atkeson, Ray Photographers from Oregon 1907 births 1990 deaths Artists from Portland, Oregon